TOPIC: "Ghosting" a run for Treasure - Changed at GenCon?

Cavor wrote: TD should not set policy to protect someone who is buying large amounts of tokens in the hope of making a profit. They should do whatever they can to encourage and reward people that support TD through token purchases.

Those are contradictory statements, because the majority of tokens are bought by "big buyers." So you're saying TD shouldn't reward big buyers, they should reward big buyers...

Brad Mortensen wrote:
Those are contradictory statements, because the majority of tokens are bought by "big buyers." So you're saying TD shouldn't reward big buyers, they should reward big buyers...

I said nothing of the sort. Are most big buyers buying them to resell them for a profit? If true, TD needs to raise their prices and capture that income.

Cavor wrote:

Brad Mortensen wrote:
Those are contradictory statements, because the majority of tokens are bought by "big buyers." So you're saying TD shouldn't reward big buyers, they should reward big buyers...

I said nothing of the sort. Are most big buyers buying them to resell them for a profit? If true, TD needs to raise their prices and capture that income.

It is the future I see - you've managed to derail this thread!


Yes - many people endeavor to resell tokens at a profit. Some are more successful than others.


It seems to be is in TDs interest to allow this, because these big buyers form a defacto network of distributors, allowing TD to have much fewer large transactions rather than many more small transactions.

It also seems to benefit players, for example you can buy "singles" of C/UC/Rare tokens for a few bucks, rather than having to buy, say, an average of $360 worth of 10 packs to get a particular current year rare, and being unable to get prior year tokens at all.


Many people have lots of ideas, theories, and feelings about this. There is not consensus agreement as to whether it's good, bad, or neutral for the game.

Matthew Hayward wrote: It is the future I see - you've managed to derail this thread!

Ah, ok back to the subject:

There seems to be 4 reasons you guys are listing for wanting ghosts / retainers:

1. We don't want to run with strangers because it might lower our enjoyment.
2. We only want to play with X number of players
3. We have physical / psychological constraints
4. Gamers are generally weird and stink

#3 is totally understandable, it’s 1&2 that I don’t quite get because it seems exclusionary. Everyone who responded said they have had both good and bad pugs. By being exclusionary you are throwing away the good experiences as well. My only advice is focus on the good ones, don’t let someone else’s behavior spoil your fun in anything you do, even if they mess something up.

Cavor wrote:

Brad Mortensen wrote:
Those are contradictory statements, because the majority of tokens are bought by "big buyers." So you're saying TD shouldn't reward big buyers, they should reward big buyers...

I said nothing of the sort. Are most big buyers buying them to resell them for a profit? If true, TD needs to raise their prices and capture that income.

Honest curiosity, are you primarily a boardgamer, ccg (magic/yu-gi and the like), or a non collectible player? Trying to really figure your thought process out.

TD deny it all you would want is a live action game with a heavy secondary side of a collectible elements (our tokens). Until and unless that changes that means different people will assign different values based on: ingame value, collectibility of token itself (rarity), and hey that looks cool i want it. Your definition of cash value may differ but the market as a fractional whole has decided that for the foreseeable future token X has a rough value of Y. Values goes up an down based on perceived value due to reprints/in game desirability and perceived rarity (see woodie collectors, and higher cost of volunteer/participation tokens).

It has been stated time and time again that it is thanks to the history of more than a few big buyers over the years that buying tokens functionally help both subsidize the game and keep it going.

Many of these big buyers buy the random packs and often break down and sell on a singles market similar to any other collectible game, our market just tends to a fraction of something like Magic but comparative to other niche collectible games.

Example: I spend roughly 200ish a year on tokens, i could try my random luck and get a pyp direct from Jeff and company. Or i can and usually do is look at a given year's set and pickup most of what i need via singles market. Could i hit it big on booster? Possible but damned unlikely considering random distribution. Thanks to singles market i can piece together a far larger majority of what i want.

In the end it is partially what the game is. Until and unless True Adventures decides to change it, ala lcg or non collectible (buy direct from Jeff exactly what you want) it is reality.

Ghosting factors partially into the above as there are tokens that have a perceived and understood value that are A, much higher odds in the treasure mix and B, only available in the boxes (see monster bits).

More polite edit: Yes I'm going to exclusionary when i have spent X money and more importantly Y effort and time organizing the run the way i want it in the very time and money limited gencon time we all have in a given year. Comes down to reasons we all do con and for many of us TD defines con. It's a once a year event and we all have our given reasons and visions of how we want it done/to be played.

Matt wrote: Honest curiosity, are you primarily a boardgamer, ccg (magic/yu-gi and the like), or a non collectible player? Trying to really figure your thought process out.

I'm mostly a D&D player, your post enlightened me a bit. I treat the game as D&D and most of you think token collecting is like Magic the Gathering. I understand the token price fervor better now.

Yes, TD is expensive and everyone should have the right to play in a manner that provides the most enjoyment.

Cavor wrote:

Matthew Hayward wrote: It is the future I see - you've managed to derail this thread!

Ah, ok back to the subject:

There seems to be 4 reasons you guys are listing for wanting ghosts / retainers:

1. We don't want to run with strangers because it might lower our enjoyment.
2. We only want to play with X number of players
3. We have physical / psychological constraints
4. Gamers are generally weird and stink

#3 is totally understandable, it’s 1&2 that I don’t quite get because it seems exclusionary. Everyone who responded said they have had both good and bad pugs. By being exclusionary you are throwing away the good experiences as well. My only advice is focus on the good ones, don’t let someone else’s behavior spoil your fun in anything you do, even if they mess something up.

Only one person cited number 4, and he was (mostly) facetious.

You omitted some significant reasons from your list. Like not wanting to be forced to play normal and losing out on XP.

Cavor wrote:

Matt wrote: Honest curiosity, are you primarily a boardgamer, ccg (magic/yu-gi and the like), or a non collectible player? Trying to really figure your thought process out.

I'm mostly a D&D player, your post enlightened me a bit. I treat the game as D&D and most of you think token collecting is like Magic the Gathering. I understand the token price fervor better now.

Yes, TD is expensive and everyone should have the right to play in a manner that provides the most enjoyment.

D&D brought me here. The crafting/transmuting aspect owes more to Computer RPGs.

There is a token collecting aspect, but thats a small subset of players. I have little interest in collecting tokens outside of what makes for a stronger build.

Some people will do sealed pack runs where the group only uses the tokens they pull from their 10 packs. There are lots of ways to play.

Cavor wrote:

Matthew Hayward wrote: It is the future I see - you've managed to derail this thread!

Ah, ok back to the subject:

There seems to be 4 reasons you guys are listing for wanting ghosts / retainers:

1. We don't want to run with strangers because it might lower our enjoyment.
2. We only want to play with X number of players
3. We have physical / psychological constraints
4. Gamers are generally weird and stink

#3 is totally understandable, it’s 1&2 that I don’t quite get because it seems exclusionary. Everyone who responded said they have had both good and bad pugs. By being exclusionary you are throwing away the good experiences as well. My only advice is focus on the good ones, don’t let someone else’s behavior spoil your fun in anything you do, even if they mess something up.

I paid the money for my 10 tickets for the run.
If I want to run only with people I know that's my prerogative.
If I want to run only with 6 people because I find it personally more comfortable that's my prerogative.

And it's not exclusionary. I'm not saying I don't want person X to play.
I'm saying I don't want to add a wildcard element to my planned event that has the potential for lessening the enjoyment of the group.

If that means I leave 1 or 2 spaces in my run unfilled to maintain the enjoyment of my party I am perfectly happy with that. I find it makes the game better for ME when I enjoy the game the way I want to enjoy it.

My True Dungeon runs are my personal vacation time to enjoy private gaming with a close knit group of friends. I'm not willing to lose that by allowing a random waitlist person into the game.

Yes, they might fit the group and it might be good.
BUT it might NOT and it might DIMINISH our enjoyment of the game.

For that reason I choose not to take the risk and secure the enjoyment we can have together, even if it's only 8 of us instead of 10

Cavor wrote:

Matt wrote: Honest curiosity, are you primarily a boardgamer, ccg (magic/yu-gi and the like), or a non collectible player? Trying to really figure your thought process out.

I'm mostly a D&D player, your post enlightened me a bit. I treat the game as D&D and most of you think token collecting is like Magic the Gathering. I understand the token price fervor better now.

Yes, TD is expensive and everyone should have the right to play in a manner that provides the most enjoyment.

The manner that provides the most enjoyment for me (and others on the forum who feel the same way) is to play only with their pre-established groups.

Cavor wrote:

Matt wrote: Honest curiosity, are you primarily a boardgamer, ccg (magic/yu-gi and the like), or a non collectible player? Trying to really figure your thought process out.

I'm mostly a D&D player, your post enlightened me a bit. I treat the game as D&D and most of you think token collecting is like Magic the Gathering. I understand the token price fervor better now.

Yes, TD is expensive and everyone should have the right to play in a manner that provides the most enjoyment.

Glad I could help, i teach quite a few games and it helps quite a bit if I know what gaming background someone is coming from regarding point of view.

TD is awesome in how many types of gamers enjoy/participate year after year and for our own various reasons. Be it play, be the absolute best, have the best build, have every token or what have you.

Changes and issues are often magnified as we have a narrow window considering play to 'get it right' again with different view points of what mean it means to 'get it right'.

TD in normal difficulty is meant for basic tokens (ie what you can get out of your starter booster) tokens are needed/really help for higher level difficulties. Again i have friends who buy tokens just to collect and others who play every year but don't give a damn about tokens they like the interactive environment.

I didn't think you were trolling, i just wanted to know where you were coming from to help explain a lot our (formite) viewpoints.

Harlax/Alex: Definitely agree to both your points, especially regarding it's expensive vacation time and i want they way i planned it. I had to ghost for the 1st time when a planned member got issues literally in the coaching room and we were about minute from going into training.

Harlax wrote:

Cavor wrote:

Matt wrote: Honest curiosity, are you primarily a boardgamer, ccg (magic/yu-gi and the like), or a non collectible player? Trying to really figure your thought process out.

I'm mostly a D&D player, your post enlightened me a bit. I treat the game as D&D and most of you think token collecting is like Magic the Gathering. I understand the token price fervor better now.

Yes, TD is expensive and everyone should have the right to play in a manner that provides the most enjoyment.

D&D brought me here. The crafting/transmuting aspect owes more to Computer RPGs.

There is a token collecting aspect, but thats a small subset of players. I have little interest in collecting tokens outside of what makes for a stronger build.

Some people will do sealed pack runs where the group only uses the tokens they pull from their 10 packs. There are lots of ways to play.

I've run a few interesting ones like that.

We ran Green with Envy 2 years ago and it was a lot of fun.
We talked about Bloody Epic which didn't happen (and won't due to scaling)

They were great fun.

They would have been a very bad place to have a random waitlist fill in.